I was looking forward to finishing up my Farm Girl Vintage blocks but then noticed that one of them would require surgery. Also, after actually reading the directions (!), I realized that I had missed one block and needed to make 3 more of another for the cornerstones. I had to summon up my patience to regroup.
I took a brief break after the blocks were done to cut up some of my random stacks of WOF scraps into Bonnie Hunter's scrap user's system. The stacks were taking up space that I want to use for solids so the scraps needed to be dealt with. I think they were in the same condition as when I unboxed them four years ago and much of the scraps were from my original ye olde stash that is probably better suited to cutting it up smaller. They weren't calicoes but fairly dull solids and a lot of other "safe" fabrics.
I also let myself get distracted by prepping a vintage Friendship top for long arming. It was made at least 20 years ago and my request was large (14" maybe?) bear's paw blocks in yellow, green and blue. It is set on point with giant setting triangles and, annoyingly, was not very square. First I removed the borders because I felt they detracted from the blocks. I spent the rest of the weekend making a back and pressing the top plus fixing some flipped seams. The finished top is about 97x76 and, of course, it has huge sentimental value but I'm pretty sure I am not interested in quilting something that large, especially in the AZ summer. When a guild friend mentioned that her business is slow due to her customers' financial uncertainty, I thought it was a good time to get it done.
By the time I finished the bear's paw, I had run out of good excuses not to revert to LTG. I have not yet put together the units/blocks I've made into the larger units and I still need to make the 60 degree triangles, the trip around the world and the pineapple blocks. Boy are those pineapple blocks slow and tedious. I had a brief, false start using the Creative Grids ruler. I'm not sure why I didn't have success but they weren't straight so I stopped after a few rounds and switched to paper piecing.
I'm tempted to create a paper pieced template for the 60 degree triangle rows too. We will see. I hope to finish the remaining 6 pineapple blocks this week. I can say with 100% certainty that I never would have gotten this far if I hadn't listed to (or maybe over-compensated for) the comment on our initial blogs saying to keep cutting extra strips and Dianne's advice to starch before cutting. Having the big box of precut strips was INSTRUMENTAL in getting this far. If I had had to stop and cut for each block type, I would have really stalled. As I mindlessly work through these pineapple blocks, I am thinking of ways to use up the leftovers. All of the sizes I've cut will fit into the scrap user's system but I'll probably keep them together for a few projects.
